Leadballoony – It's a lead thinghttps://leadballoony.com
(sorry, no balloons)Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:20:11 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/104a30e97dff973e3ecf90874a1022aa?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngLeadballoony – It's a lead thinghttps://leadballoony.com
Baby, we were spawn to rockhttps://leadballoony.com/2017/12/12/baby-we-were-spawn-to-rock/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/12/12/baby-we-were-spawn-to-rock/#commentsTue, 12 Dec 2017 08:18:10 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1897Continue reading →]]>Greetings fellows, I have three more Eru-Kin to share with you today – these are the last three basic troopers. These guys share the same body as the second set of three that I painted up, but have bare heads, so they add more interest to the group. I persevered with purple, blue & a khaki green skin tones:

I love how they look amused when viewed from the right, and evil when viewed from the left I just have some sergeant types to finish and then I’ll call this phase done with three squads of five, but don’t worry, I have many more to add to the spawning in the new year!

It hasn’t all been about the Eru-Kin since my last post – I also did a bit of building for Azazel’s ‘Painting Decemb-uary’ challenge. The aim is to finish up a ‘big thing’ that has been sitting around waiting for paint. Trouble is I didn’t have anything suitable in the queue, so I had to delve into the lead pile for something to tackle. The choice was made for me when I spotted my Death Dragon from Grenadier Masterpiece Editions… I’ve been putting off getting started on this wee beastie for ages – it is a huge piece of lead, and quite the challenge to build. I bit the bullet and put the dragon together over the weekend – much pinning and gluing required! Here she is as of Sunday morning:

Obviously the elastic bands will come off once everything has set Next stage is to give her a nice scenic base and a new converted rider, (the one that comes with is a teenyweeny mage type who might well end up in my planned chaos gnome army… yeah, that’s another project for the future). I’ll be running the completed piece as a counts-as Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament in my AoS Death legion… Mwhahahah!!!

Peace out dudes!

Filed under: Eru-Kin, Side projects Tagged: Eru-Kin, Undead]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/12/12/baby-we-were-spawn-to-rock/feed/10aj42790Spawn to be wild!https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/30/spawn-to-be-wild/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/30/spawn-to-be-wild/#commentsThu, 30 Nov 2017 07:48:20 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1890Continue reading →]]>Greetings fellows, another quick update for you this week – been chipping away at my new Eru-Kin project and have three new troops to share with you, but first up I want to share a little terrain project that I have been doing on the side. I have been wanting to do a nice bit of jungle terrain for ages now – visions of steaming alien deathworlds, bizarre prehistoric ‘lost worlds’ and psychedelic fantasy jungles are all inspirations here. Two things have motivated me to finally get my bum in gear with this – 1: my Space Frogs need a home planet, and 2: the release of a certain Frostgrave spin-off called Ghost Archipelago, (which looks like a fantastic game!).

When thinking on how best to make this happen, I thought back to Aiden’s superb jungle terrain for the Inquisitor Cynole game at BOYL 2016, and to Paul’s stunning deathworld jungle project over on Sho3box. I’m not about to question such hobby geniuses, (genii?), so I decided to trawl the interwebs for suitable low-cost aquarium plants, and picked out a few brightly coloured examples to base up:

I’ve sprinkled a liberal pinch of skullage around the place – partly to show scale, but also because we all know that skulls are cool! And no… I’m not sure where the rest of the bones are either, (best not to ask I think). I’ll be adding more to this terrain set as time goes by, but I’m quite pleased with how this little side project has started out.

So, on to the latest spawning for my Eru-Kin faction – I have three more basic troops to add to the mix this week. These guys share the same body as the first three that I painted up, but have different weapons & heads so they add a nice bit of interest to the group. I also wanted to try out some new skin tones, so I tested purple, blue & a khaki green:

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out – doesn’t it all make more sense in a freaky space-jungle?? I think I’ll repeat these skin colours with the final three troops. Here they are by squad – as denoted by the loincloths, just to give you an idea of how it is all coming together, (the General has photobombed a couple of shots too):

Anyway, that’s yer lot for this week! I’m aiming to get the final 3 troopers finished for the next post, plus maybe some more jungle terrain… I am also looking to dip back into Fantasy & build something a wee bit special for my Undead – hopefully ticking off something for Deadcember, and Azazel’s ‘Painting Decemb-uary’ challenge along the way! Catch you all next time

Filed under: Eru-Kin Tagged: Eru-Kin, Painting, scenery]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/30/spawn-to-be-wild/feed/27aj42790More Space-Frog fun, and a random piece of sceneryhttps://leadballoony.com/2017/11/21/more-space-frog-fun-and-a-random-piece-of-scenery/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/21/more-space-frog-fun-and-a-random-piece-of-scenery/#commentsTue, 21 Nov 2017 07:58:30 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1880Continue reading →]]>Greetings Humans, I have a super-quick data burst for you today. I have some more Eru-Kin to share with you – three duplicates of the second of the ‘basic troop’ sculpts, with further experimentation on the same basic skin colours… Not much else to say about these guys really, as everything I said in my last post applies to these guys! Here they are:

And with their spawn-mates:

More to follow on this project, but that’s not all folks – I also did this:

Aw Yeah!! My very own wargaming Tardis!! Ok, so this started life as a toy rather than a mini, and the scale is not quite there, but it’s close enough for government work and I’m really pleased with how it came out. Here’s an underneath shot to show how the bare plastic looked before I painted it.

A big improvement, I hope you’ll agree! I deliberately went for a beaten up & weathered look, and I’m so glad that I did. The wood grain in the toy was a joy to pick out with a drybrush, and the windows & signage just needed a few washes to tone them down a bit. Look! It even lights up!

I know this seems a bit of a random thing to paint up, but there is a method to the madness… Firstly, I can see this getting dropped in to many other games in general – Frostgrave, Necromunda, Rogue Trader – either as a scenario point, (in fact, I seem to recall that there was a Rogue Trader scenario that included The Doctor… I might have to dig that out), or just as a nice piece of scatter terrain. But more importantly, the games I run with my boys were getting a bit bogged down in the fantasy setting, but this will allow us to break out & play any genre of game in the future. Robots, pulp, aliens, dinosaurs, pirates – all are possible with your very own genre-busting Tardis to ride around in… as the 10th Doctor tells us, ‘People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.’ I plan to use this as a surprise plot point in a Crimbo game with the kids – hopefully right after the Dr. Who Christmas special

Anyway, that’s all for now dudes – more Eru-Kin to follow of course, but I also need to get planning something for Deadcember as well… ‘tis the season after all

Filed under: Eru-Kin Tagged: Eru-Kin, Painting, Rogue Trader]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/21/more-space-frog-fun-and-a-random-piece-of-scenery/feed/16aj42790A frog in the throathttps://leadballoony.com/2017/11/15/a-frog-in-the-throat/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/15/a-frog-in-the-throat/#commentsWed, 15 Nov 2017 08:05:37 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1871Continue reading →]]>Hello there! A little bit of painting to share with you all today – some troops for my new Eru-Kin project. The Eru-Kin Kickstarter provided a wealth of cool and unusual sculpts to choose from, including a batch of 4 sculpts that form what I look on as ‘core’ tactical troops, (‘Braves’ in the RT Slann background). I’ve got three of each sculpt, and decided to batch paint them one group at a time, (so the next few posts are going to be broadly similar I’m afraid). In the interests of trying to make them look a bit more individual, I have incorporated some of the old RT fluff regarding skin colour & patterning and exotic animal hides – there is some rather extreme colour experimentation along the way… I’ll be honest, there are some colour combos that don’t exactly rock my world, but hey-ho, it’s an army of space-frog-lizard-men things so who am I to judge! I’ve finished the first batch so let’s take a look:

I repeated the grey-blue armour with the odd red panel here & there, as per my test subject last week, but with different skin colours & patterning for each… I suspect that they would’ve looked much better if I had stuck with yellow flesh, (as per the test mini I did last week), but then they would have been practically identical so it’s pros & cons really. I also picked out the loin cloths in different colours & added some exotic animal print patterns – again, a call-back to the RT Slann fluff, (I suspect that the base colour of the cloth might be used to mark out different units as the army grows).

From a sculpting perspective, these guys look much less ‘Predator-esque’ than last week’s test piece… The similarities are there, but I feel like there is a different design ethic going on here… I originally had my test piece pegged in to be the General, but these latest guys are actually far more typical of the range so I may end up changing my mind on that… I suspect that the Predator dude might end up being a sniper/assassin specialist type in the final army, but we’ll worry about that further down the road. Here they are together:

Anyhoo, that’s it for now dudes – short and sweet today, but worry not – there is more to follow

Filed under: Eru-Kin Tagged: Eru-Kin, Oldhammer, Painting]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/15/a-frog-in-the-throat/feed/22aj42790If it bleeds, we can kill it…https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/06/if-it-bleeds-we-can-kill-it/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/11/06/if-it-bleeds-we-can-kill-it/#commentsMon, 06 Nov 2017 08:48:36 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1866Continue reading →]]>Happy Monday folks! I’ve managed to get into a bit of a groove this last week, and I’ve started a new RT army project that has been on the back-burner for far too long – the rather magnificent ‘Eru-Kin’ Kickstarter from Diehard miniatures. I’m aiming to get a command squad and two basic troop squads done this side of Christmas, and then get into some fun stuff in the new year, with (hopefully) a playable army on the table in time for BOYL.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what I’ve got so far – he just happens to be the General, and is such a stonking model:

So we kind of have a Slann thing going on here, but clearly this mini is heavily influenced by the Predator, which is kinda neat given that Pred is 30 years old this year, (shit… now I feel old). Man, I absolutely love that film – in fact, I would put it down as one of my all-time favourites, along with Aliens, Terminator (1&2), Blade Runner, Mad Max, Dune and Robocop (original)… My love of science fiction has deep roots – one of my standout memories was a bunch of us in a mate’s bedroom, all huddled around a small portable TV & Betamax player, watching the Predator pick of Arnie’s team one by one in the relentless claustrophobia of the jungle. The sheer impact and visceral thrill of this film totally blew my mind… Heady days my friends, heady days. *sigh*

Anyway, in terms of paining, I took it fairly easy on this guy – muted primaries, the serviceable & cool blue-grey offset by some asymmetrical red armour plates and bright splashes of glossed yellow flesh. I tried for a bone effect on the helmet & weapons, which is nice from a colour balancing perspective, but I need to go back and tidy up the guns. I also took advantage of the ‘foot on rock’ posing of the base mini, and mounted him on a neat little base topper (I got it for free for supporting the new Ghost Archipelago game from Osprey). I’m going to add some vines and stuff to the base at some point, but I want to see how the rest of the army evolves before I commit. The whole colour scheme might look familiar to some of you, because I basically copied the scheme I used on my Colony 87 not-Slann a couple of years ago:

So, there we have it – the humble beginnings of a new army. I feel a strange urge to paint up some Catachans, do some jungle terrain, and shout ‘Get to da chopper!!!’

Hello folks, it has been some time, hasn’t it? I’ve been in a real hobby slump of late – no particular reason, but I just haven’t really felt like doing much lately Also I need to apologies to those followers who are not on WordPress – for some bizarre reason I have been unable to post comments outside of WordPress for a couple of weeks, but fear not – I have been looking on with interest!

The fallow period hasn’t been a complete write-off though, I have slowly worked my way through a selection of Skellies over the last several weeks, and I also went through my leadpile in search of inspiration. First up, let’s take a look at my recent painting achievements.

Here we have a bunch of Nightmare Legion skellies, including a couple of musicians, a complete standard bearer, Renzo the champion, and Mordini the hero:

This is kinda cool because a) I now have the complete range of figured from this Regiment of Renown, and b) I can now add this lot to my existing Legion to put together a unit of 40. This is significant in AoS points because that last 10 comes at half price, and as a bonus, this frees up the C17 command section that used to lead them. Here is my updated Legion – note that Renzo is in charge now, but Mordini is not included in the unit:

I’ll get around to accurately reproducing the banner at some point in the future to really put the final gloss on this unit, but next up we have a couple of real randoms. The guy with the crossbow is an unnamed 1984 pre-slotter – he did come with another horned skeleton of the same vintage, but sadly I lost him to lead rot The two with scythes are not quite as old – the anatomically unlikely one is from the MD8 undead chariot, while the heavily armoured guy is in the ’91 Red catalogue (thanks Hivemind!!):

These guys fit in perfectly with my Cursed Company, taking this unit up to 33ish models:

Next up, I have this lonesome pikeman to show – nothing hugely exciting here, and no idea of his age or range:

He slots in nicely with my Grave Guard unit, as does Mordini and the C17 command section that got released from the Nightmare Legion. Graveguard are pretty damn good in AoS, so I am pleased to see their numbers increasing slowly:

Finally, I painted up a Middlehammer Necromancer – this guy appears in the Black catalogue of 1993:

He’s a bit boss-eyed, but he’ll do He’ll support my existing ‘mancer in AoS, and is also destined to act as his apprentice in a future Frostgrave campaign:

So, that’s it for now folks – my apologies for being so crap lately, but hopefully I’m over the slump. One of the good things about sorting out the leadpile is that I’ve gotten excited about some of the many projects I have shelved over the years… I am about to start one such project – a whole new army for Rogue Trader! Thanks for bearing with me & stay tuned for more

Filed under: AoS Undead, OldHammer Tagged: Oldhammer, Painting, Undead]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/10/30/rising-from-the-grave/feed/16aj42790To the gates of the Chapel!https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/18/to-the-gates-of-the-chapel/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/18/to-the-gates-of-the-chapel/#commentsMon, 18 Sep 2017 09:56:36 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1839Continue reading →]]>Day 2 of the Chapel has ended, and only one warband completed the journey through the forest to challenge the Lady Elect, mistress of the gates, and her unholy guardians… Despite overcoming the Wytch-cult, the Imperials fell under of dream-spell of the Albino Woods, and were lured away from the true path by wisps and ghosts. They remain lost in the deep forest, their future is uncertain… (Sadly, Kieran was ill for day 2 and didn’t make it – get well soon dude!)

The more psychically attuned Exodites resisted the lure of the forest spirits, and made it to the grand concourse that leads to the gates of the Chapel itself:

The Lady Elect awaits, while her warband stands ready:

A hard-fought battle ensues, and many noble Exodites fall to the guardians of the gates. Inevitably, the strands of fate align, and Lindethiel faces the Lady Elect in an epic duel:

Lindethiel prevails, and though grievously wounded, she and the surviving Exodites defeat the remaining guardians and deal with a minor daemonic incursion before finally ascending to the gates of the Chapel:

What awaits them inside is a tale for another time…

One last pic – the glowing columns that you can see in the photos above cast various effects throughout the game – some good, some not so good! One of the effects was the manifestation of ghosts, which, of course, Mark had lovingly created. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?), we only got to see Black Tide in-game, (the black one – highly flammable!), but I just had to show you the full supporting cast. I forget the name of the green scribe-ghost on the left, but otherwise we have Lash Banshee, Black Tide, Revenant Boy and Lady Marissa:

Gorgeous.

Phew! What an amazing weekend!! I can’t get my head around how many hours went into this project – all the warbands, (including those absent friends who couldn’t make it), all the terrain, (including the design/printing/molding of the Chapel board & assorted bits and bobs by Mark, and the buildings on the Albino Forest board that were made by Luke & shipped all the way from Australia!), the artwork from Mark and Ahmad Alibrahing (aka The Stygian Thorne), the rules generation & GM plots (Mark), the photographer (sorry, your name escapes me, but nice job!!), and the various friends-of-Mark that popped in and out over the weekend to bring cookies, offer advice, and support and cheer my uncanny ability to roll ones!! Superb effort one and all & lovely to meet you

You can expect a number of proper write-ups & short stories from me in the coming days & weeks, and I know that Mark will be putting up professional photos and write-ups over on his blog Heresyofus… Keep your eyes open for an exciting announcement over there as well

Finally, I just want to say a huge thank you to Mark for organising this whole thing & allowing me to be a part of it, and to his lovely family for their kind hospitality. You guys are the real stars of the show in my opinion, and I hope to see you all again soon!

Filed under: The Chapel Tagged: Battle Report, The Chapel]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/18/to-the-gates-of-the-chapel/feed/21aj42790The Chapel – the warbandshttps://leadballoony.com/2017/09/17/the-chapel-the-warbands/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/17/the-chapel-the-warbands/#commentsSun, 17 Sep 2017 10:51:06 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1823Continue reading →]]>Day 1 of the Chapel is over… two warbands have fought their way through the Albino Forest, having defeted a bloodthirsty wytch-cult. Now they approach the entrance to the chapel itself. Only the enigmatic Lady Elect, mistress of the gates, knows what trials await…

Here’s a quick photo dump of the warbands involved on day 1. First up – Mark’s Wytch-cult:

And here’s Kieran’s Imperial cultists:

Here are the assembled Ostium Guides (plus other denizens of the Albino Forest:

And a group shot of my Exodites:

Filed under: The Chapel Tagged: The Chapel]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/17/the-chapel-the-warbands/feed/29aj42790Tree constructs are finished!!https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/16/tree-constructs-are-finished/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/16/tree-constructs-are-finished/#commentsSat, 16 Sep 2017 00:46:29 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1813Continue reading →]]>And not a moment to soon! It’s 01:40 as I type this, and I’m heading over to West London to face the Chapel in about 8 hours time. I still need to tart up the bases, but I don’t want to risk glue fumes fogging the still-wet varnish so it’ll have to wait until the morning. I also wanted to introduce these properly, but I’m too tired & need my bed – you’ll have to settle for a hasty pic instead for now

Filed under: The Chapel Tagged: Conversion, Painting, The Chapel]]>https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/16/tree-constructs-are-finished/feed/16aj42790Forest Grumphttps://leadballoony.com/2017/09/11/forest-grump/
https://leadballoony.com/2017/09/11/forest-grump/#commentsMon, 11 Sep 2017 07:17:18 +0000http://leadballoony.com/?p=1810Continue reading →]]>Hello chaps, great news today – I’ve finished all the trees needed for the Albino Forest stage of The Chapel game this weekend! That’s six woodland bases built & painted in two weeks, with a few conversions chucked in for good measure. Yeah… I won’t lie guys, this was a slog! The painting was actually pretty ok, but the cleaning process was a real pain… I think it is safe to say that it will be a while before I tackle any more Citadel trees!

Here are the six new bases, plus a couple of close-ups on some of the more noteworthy examples:

Those miscast doll’s heads that Mark gave me are perfectly creepy, and will hopefully visually tie in the forest with the Chapel proper.

For those that are interested, the paint job on all of these is Dryad Brown, drybrushed through Baneblade Brown to Ushabti Bone. The rocks get an additional heavy drybrush of Admin Grey followed by a purple wash, while the ground gets an Agrax Earthshade wash, and the wood gets a Camoshade wash. I then do what I can only describe as a ‘wet dry-brush’ on the wood, using a very diluted white wash that I concocted, being careful not to get it on any mossy textured areas, (Citadel texture, added to fill gaps – a handy cheat!). Meanwhile the stone gets an additional light Admin Grey drybrush, has lichen spots added, and then a final wash of Agrax Earthshade. Then it’s just a case of picking out any details like bones & stuff – simples!

Here are the new trees with the three bases & scatter that I already had prepared – all pretty closely matched thank goodness:

I’m sure you’ll agree, that’s quite the forest, and I hope it helps to make the weekend a real visual treat. Now… I just need to finish my warband… I have four wraith-constructs to paint (should be quick), and I might even have time for a Harlequin… we’ll see how it goes! I’ll keep you posted dudes – catch you later in the week